


Command Me To Be Well

by alwaysanoriginal



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 2 broken people who are different yet similar on their journeys to learn who they are, F/M, Gen, Guilt, I wrote this as platonic and/or pre-reylo but people can read it as they wish, Kylo Ren Redemption, Prose about my damaged son, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 17:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13506291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysanoriginal/pseuds/alwaysanoriginal
Summary: There are those who think him to be unworthy of redemption.He agrees.She, however, does not.Of Kylo Ren, Rey, and moving forward.





	Command Me To Be Well

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be a poem, but it turned into a fic of simultaneously succinct and in-depth prose. It all started because I couldn't get the visual of Kylo kneeling before Rey out of my head.
> 
> The title is, of course, from "Take Me To Church" by Hozier.

He kneels in front of her, in subjugation and supplication, awaiting judgement and staring at the ground.

He knows he is beyond forgiveness.

He is _damaged, dark, terrifying, corrupted._  
He is _worthless, weak, useless, pathetic._  
Countless words, in others’ voices, echo in his mind.  
They are omnipresent, and omniscient.  
He has grown to believe them.

Hers is the only voice that has ever echoed in his mind softly rather than with the sharpness of insults, yet he still expects her to smite him like the goddess she is and the worthless creature he knows himself to be.

In a way, he almost wants it.

He thinks to himself that perhaps death by her hand is not only deserved, but also merciful. Here, at the end of all the suffering he helped put into motion, that suffering can truly end with him–in all ways.

He is now, in his mind, an Icarus. The light calls to him as it always has, but ultimately he knows that such glory can only burn, because even now he is unworthy to be so close.

What he expects, then, is judgement.  
What he receives, instead, is mercy.

She puts her palm on the side of his face–the side his father touched before falling; the side she herself scarred in righteous fury–and gently guides his gaze upwards.

The touch feels like absolution.

He stares up at her; what he finds in her eyes is kindness, and what he experiences in himself is the faint stirrings of hope.

She alone has looked upon the closest thing he can equate to his soul–his thoughts, his memories, his conflict, his power, his history–and yet she sees in him not worthlessness, but _worth_.

It is this that saved him, and does still.  
She takes no credit for the salvation of his soul, but this does not stop him from seeing her as his savior.

He would worship her, if she would let him.

 

~

 

Later, he understands that her unwavering mercy challenges him.  
She dares him to find himself:  
Who is he, outside of the influence of others?

He doesn’t know.  
He never has.  
With this second chance at life, he would like to find out.

But.  
Does he deserve to?

Before, he admitted to being a monster, yet there was little emotion in it.  
Now, after deciding he no longer wants to be a monster, his monstrosity is all he can think about.

He learns that repentance comes with its own price: to admit your wrongs is to acknowledge them, and to acknowledge them is to give them the power to haunt you.

A man who fools himself into thinking he’s justified sleeps peacefully.  
A man who knows he’s wrong is denied any peace.

He is drowning under the weight of all he’s done; the guilt he barely held at bay for so long now threatens to pull him under.

He hates himself more than ever before.  
He thinks that she should too.

 

~

 

Much later, finally… he comes undone.

It feels as if years of tamped-down emotions are escaping at once–and maybe they are. Maybe this was a long time coming. Maybe that’s part of the problem.

He can barely breathe because of the sobs; because of the gnarled tangle of emotions that permanently sits on his breastbone; because he’s doubled over on the edge of a bed wishing he could disappear as his memories swamp him; because he’s trying to gasp, _I’m broken, I’m broken, I don’t know how not to be broken_ but he’s choking on the words.

She finds him–as she always does, though he doesn’t deserve to be found–and she holds him to her as he shakes apart in every possible way.

She wraps her small arms around his folded-up larger frame as best as she’s able, and between his sobs and through her own silent tears, she whispers a secret-that-isn’t-a-secret to him:  
_I don’t know who I am either._

He knows this because he’s felt it in her; their matching loneliness and uncertainty is what brought them together. Still, he shakes his head, almost mindlessly. _It isn’t the same_ , he says. He’s beyond the ability to explain right now, but it isn’t the same. Not entirely.

No explanations are needed, because she doesn’t argue; she holds him tighter, and she says something important:

_It doesn’t have to be._

 

~

 

Brokenness is not a permanent state.

Phoenixes turn to ash when they are reborn.  
Kingdoms fall and are beautifully rebuilt upon ruins.  
What is to say that people, especially with help, cannot be the same?

Even as he crumbles at his lowest, she sets the foundation for them both to piece themselves back together anew.

She says, _We will both figure out who we are, and who we can be. I swear it._

It means they will learn to remake themselves day by day; learn to be more than the sum of their prior actions; learn to be more than their relations to others; learn the difficult lesson of _you are enough._

He lets these truths start a tiny flame inside of him, and he breathes it in every day.

 _Let the past die_ , he thinks. That’s what it sounds like.  
But kill it? No.  
He is so tired of violence.  
He is tired of the violence he’s waged on others, and the violence that, even after, he has continued to wage on himself.

Let the past die.  
Accept it, because you have to, in order to let it go.  
And then, upon the ruins that remain, rebuild.  
Towards a future.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for stopping by! Hope you enjoyed :)
> 
> If you liked it enough to share...
> 
> On Twitter here: https://twitter.com/CharCubed/status/957709061318946816  
> On Tumblr here: http://alwaysanoriginal.tumblr.com/post/170237012124
> 
> With a bonus graphic!
> 
> ~
> 
> Here is some bonus background info on certain lines (because literally every line is thought out way too much lol):
> 
> • In the beginning, with the words of how Kylo sees himself...
> 
> "He is _damaged, dark, terrifying, corrupted._  
>  He is _worthless, weak, useless, pathetic._ "
> 
> The top line contains the words he heard whispered between other Jedi kids, his parents and Luke, etc. because they were all afraid of him. The bottom line is the abuse Snoke drilled into him (First, whispered and twisting from afar: you don't belong with anything good. Secondly, once in his grasp: you're not even good at being dark) and Hux hurled at him frequently. This is why they're "in others' voices"; they're memories, and they're "omnipresent, and omniscient" both because they haunt him, and as a nod to how he can't hide from Snoke or even other Force users. His sense of "self" has never been a sense of self at all, because he's defined by others.
> 
> • The first line I wrote of this, about a month ago, was "The touch feels like absolution." Rey putting her palm on the side of Kylo's scarred face–and the metaphor/poetry in that–was truly the crux of this piece; the rest came later.
> 
> • My headcanon is that the things Rey says to Kylo are things she didn't make up on her own. Maybe Leia or Poe or both of them planted that seed in her, as well as in Finn (because Finn also has to remake himself but in a different way, and he doesn't relate to Rey in the same ways Kylo does, but there's SOME relation there to me). So in my head... Rey is given courage to learn who she is, and the knowledge that it's OKAY to now try to learn that, from others in her life. And then she imparts it onto Kylo. Two broken people who've struggled to find themselves in different but similar ways need a start somewhere. So that's also where the line "What is to say that people, especially with help, cannot be the same?" comes from; it's two-fold: Rey is helped by others, and that's part of the reason why she can then, in turn, help Kylo.
> 
> (If you're curious about my thought process behind any other lines, feel free to ask!)


End file.
